Dirk Rose

Dieppe

The wind:
Making us fly right to the coast
Where the green waves of the grass
And the grey ones of the bitumen
Are taken by the foam,
Both the same colour,
Into eternity.

The horizon:
Waste of ships.

The church:
Full of dead names,
Drowned by the sea or burst
By an underwater-singing bomb
In the calmest hour of the war.
There was no hand to hold,
As the waves closed upon
A liquid sky.

The rocks:
On top lost in the wind,
Searching for someone to hold,
And you always two steps before me.

Dirk Rose lives in Munich, where he is a doctoral student in German
literature. He has published original poetry in German, French and
English, as well as translations into German of contemporary Australian
poetry; his first collection is forthcoming.